Photos: Indian Village Where Two Girls were Raped, Hanged

The remote village of Katara Sadatganj has received global attention after a gruesome double rape and murder of two girls last week. The Wall Street Journal's Jesse Pesta and Krishna Pokharel went there and this is what they saw.

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The double murder, in which two girls were hung from a mango tree, has begun attracting parade of prominent politicians. Villagers waved Sunday at a helicopter carrying powerful regional politician Mayawati. The tree where the girls were hung is among the cluster behind the helicopter.
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"This is the first time in my life that I have seen so many politicians flocking into this village," said Suvedar, a 70-year-old farm worker who goes by one name. He was sitting in a lane near where the families of the dead girls live.
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The two girls, 12 and 14 years old, were "best friends," according to family members, and both wanted to be doctors. A page from the younger girl's science homework.
Jesse Pesta/The Wall Street Journal…

Evening in the village gets very dark because there is almost no electricity. The younger girl painted this decoration in the mud-walled courtyard home where she lived.
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The father of the younger girl holds a small kerosene lamp that he says his daughter would use to study early in the morning.
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A kerosene lamp and padlock on a shelf in the home where the elder girl lived.
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The 12-year-old would use this mirror, which is set into the wall of the home, her mother said.
Jesse Pesta/The Wall Street Journal…

Two relatives cast long shadows in the evening in front of one of the girl's homes.
Jesse Pesta/The Wall Street Journal…

The younger girl's mother holds a small knitted doll made by her daughter. She would make and give them to other children in the village, her mother said.
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Veerpal Yadav, the father of the three men arrested in the rape and murders, said he believes his sons are innocent. "The accusations should be investigated," he said, "If they are guilty they should be hanged." The men haven't been charged.
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Over the weekend the village became a chaotic scene of VIP convoys, security sweeps and media scrambles as big-name politicians visited the families of the victims. Photographers on Sunday crowded around a member of Parliament in the courtyard of the younger girl's family.
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Poonam Yadav, an 11-year-old who lives in the village, said she saw the dead bodies hanging from the tree last week. "I'm scared," she said, standing with her aunt near a spearmint field on the edge of the village, near the tree. One of the murdered girls was just a year older than Poonam.
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Mahesh Kashyap, a security guard at a village school, saw the dead girls hanging from the tree as well. "The bodies were moving in the wind like they were dolls," he said. "I was in tears."
Jesse Pesta/The Wall Street Journal…

This past Thursday, the two girls were buried on the bank of the Ganges river, a few miles from their homes, in a small ceremony before dawn. Two mounds of sand mark their graves.
Jesse Pesta/The Wall Street Journal…

Some of the girls' clothes lies scattered among wild spearmint plants near their graves. "The sky was full of stars when they were buried," said a brother-in-law of one of the girls, visiting the burial site late Sunday along the Ganges river.
Jesse Pesta/The Wall Street Journal…

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